Free falling
by lonni
Summary: Robin Scherbatsky, pregnant. Somewhere, someone was having a good laugh. And now she had to deal with it. AU from 7x12, Symptom of Illumination. WIP, definitely not a fluff.


A/N: This is an AU for episode 7.12, _Symptom of Illumination_. In this AU, Robin is not infertile, and she is indeed pregnant. This is not going to be a smut fic, just a(n hopefully realistic) one. I understand what is like not wanting to have kids, and I think the show went the easy route by making Robin unable to have babies. I just want to explore the possibility.

This is just the prologue for now – it's kind of short compared to the first chapters, but I felt it was better off on its own. I might merge it with chapter one later.

* * *

"I'm pregnant."

Robin blurted out the words as fast as she could, as if they were something dirty, and she realized she _did_ felt better. Slightly. Saying it out loud made it real, yes, but it also made her feel lighter, in a delightfully _selfish_ way. She deliberately looked at Barney face as she said it, the flash of confusion passing through his eyes, the frowning of his eyebrows as he took in what she said. It was oh so pleasant, no longer being the only one to carry this burden. It felt so oddly comforting.  
There it was, cards lied out.

And then he had to go and make a stupid joke, the way he acted pretty much every time, and suddenly Robin felt her new found security disappear. Who was she kidding, really, pregnant? Robin Scherbatsky, pregnant. Somewhere, someone was having a good laugh.

So Robin punched him, hard, and had the satisfaction to see him fall down on the floor, to see Barney react _somehow_ because she just couldn't bear the thought of him looking so unfazed and cool when she was about to burst.

"Okay." Barney was rising up, slowly, glancing at her sideways and carefully touching his jaw.  
"Are you…" he blinked a couple of times, probably still processing what had taken Robin hours to deal with "are you sure you are…?"

"Well, not positive"  
Robin still wanted to hope, somehow. Maybe it was all just a big misunderstanding, maybe she would wake up one day and the world would have been right again.  
"I'm going to see the doctor on Monday to find out for sure." Maybe she should have waited to tell Barney, just a few days. But Robin Scherbatsky was adult enough, cynical enough to know that problems never go away, and there's no point in delaying the inevitable. And she really couldn't keep it to herself, not with Lily and Marshall and James with his kid and Keving looking at her with that adoring eyes of his.  
"And not a word, to anyone." What would her friends think? Knowing that she'd slept with Barney, while they were both in committed relationships, not less. Knowing she was the reason why Barney broke up with Nora, knowing she had turned his back on him and stayed with Kevin anyway, because he was the safest choice. Nice Kevin, who really didn't deserve her shit.

And Barney had to remark on this, obviously. "You know," he said, still nowhere as nervous as Robin had feared - and hoped - he would be "it's probably Kevin's."

Yeah, rub it in.  
"Kevin and I haven't had sex yet." And he had to make her say it, the ass. That she would sleep with him, in the same bed he'd probably had sex with his _girlfriend_ the same day, but she wouldn't sleep with her _boyfriend_, who probably knew exactly what was going through her head – therapist, Harvard and Princeton and Harvard again – but kept lying to himself anyway, like the rest of them.

"If I am pregnant" that if, who was she lying to? "then you're the dad."  
And she waited for him to run away screaming, as fast as he could.

Barney didn't run.  
He blinked.  
"This is wonderful." And it was Robin's turn to blink now.  
"I'm gonna be a daddy!"

And he sounded so cheerful, like it was the best thing that ever happened to him.  
And for a brief moment, Robin wondered how the hell she'd managed to end up in the Twilight Zone.

* * *

Robin didn't know which was worse, her being pregnant or Barney being so fucking _enthusiast_ about it. Why, why was him so happy? This was Barney Stinson, after all – the guy who'd invented _Not a father's day_, the guy who thought pregnant women were gross and a baby was something to run away as fast as he could. And yet there he was, saying, _This is wonderful_, and she didn't know what to do.

Her first though had been getting an abortion, and now she couldn't.

Robin was a modern, emancipated woman. She was smart enough to rationalize abortion, to put _it _on a different plane than _murder_, the same way _armed bank robbery _was on a different plan than _shoplifting _at the make up section at Wal-Mart. She was self-centered enough to know she would put her life before the not-yet-concrete life of something that was, at that point, just a mass of cells, and honest and self-assured enough to admit it without feeling guilty in the slightest.

Had she gotten pregnant as a stupid teenager, she would definitely have gotten an abortion and went on with her life, with only the slightest twinge of remorse, knowing for sure that she had no means to support a new life, nor the luxury to to give the child away and losing nine months of her time and body – of her_ life_ – to a being she would ultimately give away to someone else.

Had she gotten pregnant as a college student or as a struggling young journalist, she might have done the same, with only a _slightly_ bigger twinge of remorse.

But back then she'd always been careful enough to make so that such a situation never happened, and right now, with an established career that would afford her a maternity leave, and a more-than-enthusiast baby daddy loaded enough to import some huge television screen from Korea like it was nothing, and she _couldn't_. There was not being able to have a kid, and there was not wanting to. There was rationalization, and then there was sheer selfishness.

And Robin, despite all the things she liked to think about herself, wasn't selfish. Not_ that _much, anyway.

A couple of days later, with still no idea of what to do, Robin straight-out asked him.

"Barney," she said, right after he wrestled a drink from her, replacing with his, _Iced tea for Mommy!_ "Why are you so… happy?"

"Because," he looked as though he was trying to explain why water was wet. "This is perfect. I _wanna_ be a dad."

_Maybe you want, now. _Robin found herself thinking. _What about in ten years? Two? Maybe even three months?_ But she was too scared to ask that, and she went with the other, more obvious, argument.

"Look, it's not perfect. I have a boyfriend."

He looked as though he'd completely forgotten that, and she couldn't really protest. After all, how long had she known Kevin compared to Barney? It wasn't like Robin thought Kevin was_ the one_ or anything, like Ted would say, but he was nice enough and crazy enough to put up with her.

But Kevin's not the real problem here.

"I don't want kids," she said, for the first time hating herself for it. "I've never wanted kids and never, in a million years, will I ever want kids."

And it was true, absolutely true, but what now? Did that make her strange? Did that make her a bad person? Normal women all wanted kids, Robin had always known that, but she always ended up taking comfort in the fact that normal women also dreamed of getting married so that their could quit their jobs and move to the 'burbs.

But now, suddenly, it was different. It was more real, now there was a kid coming, and she wouldn't be able to take care of him – or her. Would he – she – grow up hating her? He or she, not an _it_, Robin had always disliked people who called their unborn kids, _it_. She didn't like children, but they deserved more respect than that.

"I can't have kids." Robin started saying again, when the rest of the gang banged in.

They sat at the table, mercifully missing whatever undertone was going on between her and Barney, Marshall carrying a huge red… thing. They talked about babies, of course, and Lily's pregnancy, and female Santas, and AC/DC.

And then Lily came up with baby showers, a We B Babies, and all Robin could think, sat at that table, Barney across her was, _this is not me_.


End file.
